How Facebook Can Put Google Out Of Businesshttp://www.businessinsider.com/how-facebook-can-put-google-out-of-business-2011-6/comments
en-usWed, 31 Dec 1969 19:00:00 -0500Thu, 17 Aug 2017 23:28:41 -0400Ben Elowitzhttp://www.businessinsider.com/c/4deff9e5ccd1d5e926150000LericanWed, 08 Jun 2011 18:38:29 -0400http://www.businessinsider.com/c/4deff9e5ccd1d5e926150000
This argument has been made before, but has serious flaws.
1.) Not all of FB's users contribute to the dataset of preferences (likes, etc) I'm not sure of the proportion, but I suspect it's significant and therefore diminishes the value and quality of the data Elowitz holds in such high esteem.
2.) Not all of FBs purported 500 million users are active, and those that are active are not active to the same degree of others. This really decreases the 500 million to a much lower number. Combine this with #1 and the value of this data dream starts to fizzle.
3.) People's preferences, likes, etc change pretty fast, so to leverage FB data one would need to be able to predict those changes, not just rely on yesterday's news. More critically, what does "like" really mean? Does it mean that someone really likes something enough to buy it, use it, or even remember "liking" it? Is "liking" really just a way of clapping, high-fiving, or winking at someone?
4.) FB is a walled garden that everyone does not want to enter so the other billions of people who don't care about FB are out of the equation. And you can't extrapolate the FB likes and high-fives to the rest of the world
You can chip away really fast at the "massive" influence FB users have on the Elowitz data dream, especially when asserting that it's the silver bullet to putting Google out of business.http://www.businessinsider.com/c/4deff5f1cadcbb81121d0000NeekWed, 08 Jun 2011 18:21:37 -0400http://www.businessinsider.com/c/4deff5f1cadcbb81121d0000
This is a matter of opinion, really. This is oversimplifying it, but the argument is basically that because FB knows what your friends and like-minds like, it can accurately predict what you'd like too. Which isn't the case. Or to put it simply:
When I search for something, I want the most relevant info, bar none. I don't give a fart what my friends, relatives or colleagues or anyone in my social graphs think or want.